Fugitives
by necaberint
Summary: The L4D gang and some OC’s attempt to escape to the last place safe from the zombies. Can they survive their chosen refuge and the voyage to it?


Arctic Fugitives: A Left For Dead Fanfiction.

Arctic 1: Baltimore

Summary: The L4D gang and some OC's attempt to escape to the last place safe from the zombies. Can they survive their chosen refuge and the voyage to it?

Setting: The Atlantic Ocean and surrounding lands.

Disclaimer: I don't own Left For Dead. I don't have anything worth taking either, so don't sue me. I own the original characters: Brian, Rosalina, Cressida, Adriana, and Emilia.

"Damnit, Zoey, take cover!" yelled Brian as a hunter pounced at the brunette. She turned and ducked just in time, the monstrosity missing her, to be impaled upon Brian's waiting bayonet. He slid the weapon out of the corpse and proceeded to clean it on the hunter's hoodie.

"Gross." Said Zoey.

"Well," replied Brian. "If I knew what this did to people, I might be drinking it. That would save some water."

"Nevermind, shut up." countered the young woman, who had picked herself back up. They were in the café in the National Aquarium overlooking Baltimore Harbor. They had come there to take a boat, because they were trying to get to a military safe zone. It had been four weeks since the first infection hit, and life had changed drastically. It was as if there had been some cosmic nightmare and it had been spilled from dreams to reality. And speaking of reality, fact was now stranger than fiction, for example: how Brian had ended up with Zoey.

_____________________Flashback__________________

Zoey had been fleeing by car from Pennsylvania State University when she had run out of gasoline on route fifty down by the Occoquan. She got out of her car, recognizing the shed to be a fuel storage area when she was pounced by a hunter. As she said her final prayers to god and the last darkness clouded her eyes, her assailant fell dead, and she looked around. She saw only a boy, holding an AK-47. Thinking he was a terrorist, wanting to finish her she shouted: "Na'am! Na'am enriqi!"

The boy looked at her quizzically and asked: "What are you saying? Are you alright?"

Zoey heaved a massive sigh of relief and said: "I'm fine." She tried to stand, but couldn't. Her sides were torn up, and she was losing blood. The boy offered her his hand.

"Get up." He said, trying to hoist her to her feet. The boy was physically weak, although he had a hard look about him, as if he were a death machine.

She couldn't rise, and bit her tongue, suppressing the pain. A scream might attract a horde, then they'd be in even deeper trouble. Undeterred, the boy walked away from her hands to her feet. He said: "I'm going to drag you into a boathouse. If any infected come, shoot them." With that, he put his hands on her blue jean clad ankles and began pulling. Her red jacket created much less friction than the denim and after five minutes of tense agony, he had her into a boathouse and had shut the door behind them.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"We're at the Occoquan Regional Park. More specifically, inside boathouse number two. Back before the zombie virus, I was a coxswain for one of the local crew teams.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Brian. Who are you?"

"I'm Zoey."

"Hello Zoey. Got yourself into a hell of a situation didn't you. What happened?"

Zoey began to recite her travails. "I was a student at Penn State when the outbreak occurred four weeks ago. I immediately tried to get home, but the highways were jammed with people trying to flee. I walked for about three days before I saw my first zombie. I was saved by this outlaw biker named Francis. He and his gang gave me a couple of pistols before going off. I took an abandoned taxi cab for the next four days until I got here. Then, a hunter got me, and you showed up wielding an AK. You dragged me in here and that's it. So what's your story?"

Brian replied: "I was waiting for my parents to show up after a regatta when a sudden terrorist attack came in. They were after Joe Biden. They started taking casualties. I beat one to death with a particularly nasty stone and took his gun. I shot down some more, then the infected came. They swarmed in from everywhere. Within seconds, people all around me were engulfed by the horde. I shot into the swarms, but it was to no avail. I took a knife from a fallen secret service agent and stuck it onto my gun as a bayonet. I took all the ammunition and food I could carry and hoofed it back to the boathouse, fortifying it and stockpiling necessities. I've been like then for three weeks, then you turned up." Brian finished with a matter of fact tone.

__________________Present___________________

"So," said Zoey. "Which boat should we take?"

"I don't know." replied Brian. "I'm not sure how to use anything bigger than an eight man shell."

"How about that one?" She was pointing to a medium sized fishing vessel about 80 feet long.

"So long as I can handle it and it'll get us away from the zombies, I'm fine with it." He paused then spoke again. "We'll be moving out in five minutes, so get ready. Heal and reload. We don't know what could be on that boat."

"Aye aye captain." smirked Zoey back. Brian chuckled. He hadn't had a good reason to laugh for months, and he desperately needed to drop responsibility for once. He had been the unofficial head of the duo since their meeting, and the constant fighting, as well as the lack of information was frustrating him. He wanted to find some other survivors. That would give him more information and increase the firepower of the group. After all, three guns are better than two.

The next few minutes passed in silence as Gordon reloaded his AK and checked his bayonet and fireman's ax. He kept the useful item with him in case if he needed an emergency weapon. He had an M1911 pistol as his secondary, but it always paid to be overly prepared rather than underprepared. Brian asked: "Zoey, are you ready?"

"Yeah." replied the brunette. The plan was to just take a boat, but neither of them really knew what they were doing. With luck, they could find a ship that was already set to go that they could just jack out of the harbor. Zoey had heard rumors of a military safe zone in upstate New York, so she had suggested going to Boston. He had agreed and they had planned for this action before leaving the Occoquan. They were ready. The main tactic they agreed upon was no guns aboard the ship, as they didn't want to break anything essential. They would be going at it hand to hand. To this end, Brian had raided a firehouse along the way and scavenged an ax lying abandoned in the cab of a ladder engine. Zoey was carrying a rapier, a weapon she had assured Brian of her competence in because she had taken up fencing when younger. With no more delay, they set off.

The pair met no zombies in the harbor area. That meant two things: witch or tank, and since they weren't hearing any sobs, they assumed that they were about to get up close to a tank. Zoey readied a Molotov. She peeked around a corner and saw nothing. This was unnerving her. Although no one wanted to be faced with a witch or tank, at least the frantic action was better than scanning everywhere like a paranoid megalomaniac.

As if in a sick answer to her fears, they began to hear the distinctive crying of a witch as they neared their target vessel. A witch was right in front of them, right where they needed to go. Brian readied his ax. He raised it to his shoulder and lunged.

The witch looked up and gasped in surprise. Before she could even begin to register fury of pain, her head was cloven in two, by a blood sprayed Brian. However, they did not have any time to celebrate. For at that very moment, a tank hiding in the ship burst forth, eager to end their lives. The beast charged forth, making the ground shake. Abandoning all thoughts of the plan, they turned tail and fled as quickly as their legs would carry them. Zoey dropped their Molotov and it lit, igniting the tank. This spurred on the beast to move even faster and it began gaining ground.

Certain doom had almost ensnared them when Brian saw it: a submarine floating fifty meters offshore. "Follow me!" he ordered Zoey. Brian took a sprint for the water, knowing that once he was on the sub, he would be safe from the tank. He dove into the water. It was cold, making him want to curl up and shiver, but he pressed on. He pressed forwards, putting all his strength into each stroke, Zoey hot on his heels, with the tank sinking right to the bottom.

After what seemed like an eternity of cold wetness, He reached the submarine. It was massive, he didn't know how big, but it made the USS Nautilus, which he had seen as a little boy seem like a miniature. He struggled onto the sloped side, the heaving of the sub nearly keeping him off. Brian put out his hand to Zoey, hauling her aboard. He looked about for a hatch. After a minute he found it and opened the access way before calling Zoey to follow him. He plopped onto the deck, but their troubles weren't over yet.

Suddenly, he heard a grunting, then a squealing a second later. There were infected aboard the submarine! Quickly, he grabbed his ax and let the zombie catch itself on the head. It stumbled backwards, then, not remembering its pain, charged forwards again. This time, Brian was ready for it. The boy brought the weapon swinging down onto the infected's neck, decapitating the fiend.

The next thing he knew, there were more hurried footsteps and something wet squirted onto his face. He looked up in panic and saw Zoey holding her rapier through an infected. She withdrew and led him on a killing spree. They hacked through at least fifty infected each before at last, there were no more to kill. Wiping the sweat off his brow, Brian asked Zoey to take care of the bodies, citing that he was lacking in strength. She grimaced, but did it with an air of disgust.

Getting rid of dead bodies was a grisly, although essential task. Being immune to the infection didn't stop you from getting sick. Dead bodies rotted and became breeding grounds for masses of deadly bacteria. Also, they smelled bad and weren't nice to look at. And what would the dead person care if their body was dumped overboard? It wasn't as if they could care.

While his companion purged the vessel of corpses, Brian went looking for food. He hadn't eaten anything except for a fromage bagel at a starbucks that morning and he was hungry enough to bite a tank. Well, maybe not a tank, but something nice and meaty nonetheless. He was looking through the kitchens when he thought he heard something behind him. He turned quickly to look, ready to lunge with his ax should he need to. He was trying to figure out how to open a can of peaches when he suddenly had a knife against his neck.

"If you want to live, don't move!" commanded his assailant. The voice was harsh, but seemed to be in a remotely Scottish Accent.

"I'm an American. I'm immune. Just put that knife down and let's talk like rational individuals. It seemed to work. The assailant seemed to put down their weapon.

"But if you so much as look like you're going to go at me, I'll kill you." threatened his assailant.

"I promise not to attack you." said Brian soothingly. Apparently this person was dangerous and needed to be pacified. Then, his mysterious assailant turned around and Brian did not know whether or not to jump for joy or to be even more afraid. The assailant was a she.


End file.
